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Bel rapped his knuckles on the door before cracking it open. “You decent, Q?”

“Yes,” came the raspy answer.

He pressed a kiss to my forehead before ushering me into the room and closing the door behind me. Quinn was sitting up in his bed, a dog-eared book on his lap. His tawny hair was still loose, and his glasses were perched on his nose. He’d taken his shirt off, and my heart seized at seeing the aftermath of his injury.

In addition to the old scars that marked his skin, there was a jagged dark stain in the middle of his chest, black lines spiderwebbing from the center of the wound. Everything was my fault. The accident. The attack. Even his slow healing now was because he’d refused to let Rami help him immediately.

“How are you?” I shuffled my feet, feeling awkward as I hovered just inside the room. He didn’t invite me further.

“What do you want?” he asked instead and removed his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose like he was warding off a headache.

The rebuff stung, but I shoved away the hurt and steeled my resolve. This wasn’t about my hurt feelings. “We should talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” He slid his glasses back into place and picked up his book, dismissing me.

“Quinn.” I searched his heartstring to sense what he wasn’t saying, but he’d retreated and pulled it so deeply into himself that I could barely feel him. “Please don’t be mad.”

“Don’t be mad?” He speared me with a look so cold it made me shiver. “What right do you have to ask that of me?” The anger in his eyes nearly cut me off at the knees, and desperation clawed at my chest. I had to fix this. I had to make him see that I did the right thing. The only thing.

“You were dying!” My voice was strangled by the panic that had a chokehold around my throat.

Without warning, he threw his book across the room with a shout. “You should have let me!”

I flinched and tripped back until I was pressed to the door, tears streaking down my face. “You…You would rather be dead?”

He thrust his hands into his hair, refusing to watch as his words ripped me to shreds. “Things would’ve been a hell of a lot easier that way.”

The fracturing of my heart was an exquisite agony that stole the air from my lungs and left me gasping. When a whisper of regret fluttered through our bond, it brought the truth with it. And that laced my pain with anger.

“For someone who can sense lies, you suck at telling them,” I spat. Because I didn’t need a superpower to know that he was full of shit. I could see it on his face, feel it in my chest now that his tight grip had faltered. He was fighting a lot of tangled, messy emotions—fear, joy, relief, guilt. But regret about living? That wasn’t one of them. He’d said it to hurt me, and the barbed arrow had found its mark.

“Get out, Cordelia.”

I sucked in a hitching breath and scrubbed at my eyes with shaking hands. “Fuck you, Quinn.” I tore open the door and slammed it in my wake. Bellamy was topping the stairs as I stepped into the hall, drawn by either the noise or the devastating emotions twisting my heart. His expression fell further when he saw me.

“What happened?” He opened his arms, but I warded him off with an outstretched hand and shook my head.

“This isn’t going to work.” I ducked around him and started down the stairs. “I can’t...I can’t do this.”

He followed right on my heels. “What do you mean?” Taking my elbow, he pulled me to face him when we reached the landing. “Blue, talk to me.”

But I couldn’t. Letting the words out would only snap whatever thread of composure I had left, and I wouldn’t break down here. Not with the man who’d driven the jagged knife into my chest sitting just upstairs.

“Take me home, Bel. Please.”

“Okay.” He accepted my desperation, conceding without further explanation, and my heart hurt even worse. When I’d said this wasn’t going to work, I wasn’t just talking about staying at the house. It was everything. Going to this stupid school. Trying to fit into some role that I clearly wasn’t cut out for. I wouldn’t break this family. I wouldn’t.

The ride back to my apartment was quiet. I didn’t cry. I didn’t speak. I don’t even know if I breathed the whole way. I just stared out the window, trying to ignore the way my heart slowly fractured as I lost everything—everyone—all over again. Bellamy didn’t push. He let me have my silence, one hand on the wheel and the other on my thigh like he knew what was coming and couldn’t bear to let go yet.

By the time we were at the outer door to the building, I was shaking from the effort of keeping the bottle holding my pain corked. I fumbled my keys twice before Bel gently wrapped his hand around mine to steady it.

“Let me come up?”

I hesitated, chewing on my trembling lip. It would only make things harder.

“I won’t hover,” he added. “Please.”

I had to tell him no. I couldn’t stretch this out. The word was sitting on my tongue, so why did I say, “Okay.”?